I found fun little ways to pass the mundane hours at school. My favorite of these was to send notes to Leo while we were in class --- different classes. I simply had to write a message down on paper, or any surface for that matter, and teleport it onto Leo’s paper, wherever he happened to be. The message would immediately disappear after it had been sent; therefore, it was undetectable by the teachers. Perfect. I had discovered, with the help of Leo and my mom, that I had more powers than I’d ever dreamed possible; and so far, at least one power that seemed to be unique only to me. Leo and I discovered it one day while practicing a few powers in my living room, because it had now become too cold outside to leave the house for very long. The outdoors was definitely more accommodating, but for now the living room would have to do.
We worked on making a glass of water disappear then reappear. My first attempt was rather novice. The glass disappeared, leaving only the water behind to spill all over my mom’s coffee table and drip down the table leg to pool on top of her antique rug on the floor --- or so we thought.
Upon closer inspection, Leo and I realized that the water had actually pooled over some type of invisible protective layer. Not one single drop had actually come in contact with the coffee table or rug. Leo looked mesmerized, and I was astounded.
I had no inclination as to how I accomplished such a feat, but I could only assume it had been connected to my protective instincts, possibly brought on by panic.
Leo wanted to experiment a bit more with my unexpected and unique power. He told me that he was going to disapparate the headband I was wearing in my hair, and he wanted me to attempt to keep him from doing so using the very same protective instincts I reacted with when the water spilled.
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah…I think so.”
“You sure?”
“Leo, just do it already. I can’t react instinctively if you’re warning me every step…”
A tugging sensation tingled at the top of my head, breaking my words off mid-sentence. I did exactly as Leo wanted. I protected what was mine. The headband was my favorite after all, adorned with a solitary row of rhinestones across the top. Simultaneously, I watched as Leo was knocked back onto the couch, conveniently placed behind him, as I felt the tug against my scalp relinquish its pull.
Leo stared at me for a moment, total disbelief and something else --- maybe amusement --- washed across his face. I couldn’t quite tell what he was thinking, and I grew a little worried.
“What did I…are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I’m fine. Wow, what was that?”
“I don’t know really. I don’t know what I did. I just didn’t want you taking my headband and messing up my hair, so I tried to keep you away. Why? What happened to you?”
“I’m not sure. I got knocked back by a, a force.”
“I don’t think I did that,” I responded confused.
“I don’t know, maybe,” Leo said. A grin crept across his gorgeous face and his drop-dead handsome features lightened as awareness of something I knew nothing about crept over him.
Leo bolted across the room toward me with a smile as wide and joyous as I’d ever seen. I melted instantaneously; my legs grew weak and my head fogged. I was continuously amazed --- even after all these years of protest and insistence on my part to maintain a façade of merely friendship --- at how his amazingly perfect face, handsomely rugged features, and beaming stare could make me feel as if we were the only two people in the whole world.
Leo wrapped me tightly in his muscular arms then picked me up by my waist. He shouted and laughed as we spun and danced in circles around my living room, and soon enough his contagious laughter had me giggling too. My mom ran into the room, panic stricken from all the chaos and noise that traveled through the walls into the kitchen where she’d been cooking dinner.
“What happened? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong, absolutely nothing,” Leo answered in a jubilant sounding voice, lifting me off my feet for the second time.
Not even my mom, who stood there with her hands on her hips and her “you about gave me a heart attack” expression, could wipe the smile from my face at this precise moment. I was still fuzzy as to what we were celebrating so exuberantly, but I’d deduced it was obviously something I did while protecting my beloved headband from Leo’s disapparating spell. However, Leo had yet to clue me in as to what, exactly, that was.
“I hate to break up the celebration,” my mom started. “But now that I’ve finally caught my breath from being scared out of my pants, can I ask why you two are bouncing off my walls?”
I could tell that my mom wasn’t actually angry. In fact, there was even the tiniest curl at the edge of her lips that was surely a result of Leo’s outburst and lack of control, but she attempted to keep that under wraps for what was probably dramatic effect. This was most definitely the first time she had seen Leo this animated --- except perhaps on the football field --- but most certainly never in her own house.
“Um, I did something, but…”
Leo interrupted, “She was amazing! You should’ve seen her, Mrs. Olson.” He looked as if he were going to spin me again, but thought better of it. “I think…” Leo paused a moment considering his words carefully and continued in a more quiet subdued tone, “She can shield.”
My mom gasped, taking in as much air as her lungs could possibly hold, “Are you sure?”
“Not completely, but from what my parents have described I’m almost certain that’s what she just did. Becca shielded my disapparating spell.”
“All right, hang on…we’re going to test this,” my mom said excitedly, as she walked over to position herself directly before me. “Becca, I’m going to…” she looked around the room searching, finally settling her eyes on the wooden stirring spoon still clutched in her hand from cooking dinner prior to Leo’s distracting outburst. “To throw this spoon at Leo.”
Leo’s smile faded.
I laughed out loud, “You’re going to what?”
Leo’s eyes were wide now, pleading with me to get him out of this, but I found a slight bit of humor in his uncomfortable situation, so I simply shrugged my shoulders as if there was nothing I could do. “Yes now, like I said, I’m going to throw this spoon at Leo…” I let out another chuckle.
“And you, Becca, just concentrate on protecting Leo and keeping him safe. Don’t give me, or what I’m doing, another thought.”
My eyes washed over Leo’s worried expression, and just as I was about to focus all my energy and thoughts on his safe-keeping, my mom’s unusual and comical stance grabbed hold of my gaze. She looked like a major-league pitcher about to throw a ninety-five mile per hour fastball; she was so intense and serious that I couldn’t hold it in. Laughter burst out of me as tears ran down my already flushed cheeks. The very same moment that my laughter released, my mom flung the wooden spoon hard, directed dead center on Leo’s face.
My jaw let go of its smile and hit the floor. A mere half of a second later, the spoon struck Leo’s flawless forehead, leaving an instant purplish-red welt then bounced off his head and landed on the floor between the two of them.
“Oh, oh no. I’m so very sorry,” my mom covered her mouth with both her hands, completely astonished at what she’d done.
I burst into even more laughter than before, spitting a spray of saliva across Leo’s now blemished and unbelieving face.
“Oh, God,” I placed my hands along the sides of his cheeks and wiped my spit from his moist face using the sleeve of my shirt. “Leo, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to do that,” I continued wiping while my mom ran for a clean cloth from the kitchen.
The combination of my embarrassment, coupled with incomprehension and humiliation, that rose high in Leo’s cheeks and wondering eyes, had me fighting back still more bursts of laughter. I somehow managed to keep them relatively contained with only a few miniscule giggles that slipped out at random moments.
My mom reentered
the living room with the cloth, and I took it upon myself to clean Leo’s face. After apologizing profusely, I kissed the red lump on his forehead, then we set ourselves back to our original places to attempt the shield once more.
“Becca, I have complete trust in you, but you’re going to concentrate this time, right…on me?” Leo asked with a tiny smidgen of hesitancy, as my mom walked across the room holding the very same wooden spoon as before.”
“Are you positive you want to try this again,” my mom questioned Leo with a pitied and worried expression.
Leo didn’t respond. He simply looked to me in order to find his answer.
“I’m concentrating…focused…no worries, Leo,” but I heard him gulp down a lump in his throat as his name rolled off my lips. “Let’s do this,” I voiced determinedly.
With those words my mom let the spoon fly, but I never saw it leave her hands. I was totally and completely focused on nothing else but Leo, and only the thoughts of keeping him from harm flooded my brain. I couldn’t allow a second swollen welt on that beautiful face. My gaze and concentration never faltered. I heard cheers coming from my mom’s direction while a monstrous sigh released from deep inside of Leo.
“You did it, hon!”
Leo simply couldn’t contain himself --- even though my mom was in the room --- and he leapt to his feet, kissed me hard, and spun me around the room once more for good measure.
“Do you know what this means?” he asked, laying a loving and approving hand aside my warm cheek.
“I stopped the spoon, yeah great. Now why is that such a huge deal?”
“Becca, it’s fantastic!” Leo said, sitting my feet back down on the floor.
“I can’t believe it! I’m so proud of you!” My mom clapped.
“Can’t you? I know Leo can’t do that, but can’t you?”
“No,” my mom answered quickly, cutting off my question. “I’ve never even known a Wizard that can shield. I know we don’t all go bragging about who’s who and our powers and all that, but I’ve never actually seen shielding done in person…until now.”
My mom rambled on like this for another minute or so, as Leo beamed and nodded his head with pride and approval.
“Don’t you see, Bec? You’ll actually be able to shield yourself and others if you’re ever in danger…should anything like that ever happen, of course,” my mom explained.
My mind drifted back to the day of the coyote attack. That day when all else failed and I had no other options, and only when panic set in as the animal leapt for my throat, I had shielded myself. It dawned on me now and finally made sense that that’s what happened that day out in the woods. I had shielded myself by putting up an invisible layer of protection. I even remembered feeling the heavy thud from the coyote as it hit and rolled off my protective shield.
A new sense of calm spread throughout my body. Something now made sense --- not in my old human world, of course --- in this new magical world of mine. Something finally made sense. I was renewed with hope that maybe one day, someday soon, I would understand all that had happened in my life over the past month. I now believed in the possibility that everything might be explained in time. “I want to see you do it again.” My mom bounced with anticipation, pride, and utter joy. Seeing her pride in me felt wonderful.
Before another word could escape any of our lips, we were all knocked off balance by a gut-wrenching, mind-numbing blast. I didn’t know what had happened, and it took me a minute or two to get my bearings. I had been jolted to my core, and my insides still vibrated from the explosion.
“What was that?” I asked panicked, still rubbing my eyes in an attempt to refocus. I blinked continuously as my eyesight was slowly restored to normal, then desperately searched the room, as well as my mom’s and Leo’s expressions, for any hint as to what set off or caused the blast.
“I’m not sure,” my mom answered. “It sounded like it probably came from outside. Perhaps from the woods. Both of you stay here…stay together. I’m going out back to get your dad and he’ll check it out.”
The sun had begun to set and it cast an orange-red glow around the room, flickering and bouncing around the shadows from wall to wall. The color intensified as the flickers danced menacingly around the living room. The orange-red glow grew more prevalent.
Leo and I seemed to both become aware at the same moment that something was off; the color that filled my living room was too thick and full of dangerously life-like movements to have been cast by the setting sun.
I turned, frightened and unsure of what I may see, as Leo flew to the window. I saw pure terror in his eyes as the glow blazed in his pupils.
“No!” he screamed.
“What is it? What’s happening?” I panicked.
The words had barely slipped through my lips when Leo bolted from the room at lightening speed. Horror rose through my veins when I saw the desperate panic fill his eyes. Leo darted through the kitchen and flew through the back door on an obvious mission.
I followed as fast as my legs would allow. I heard my mom call Leo’s name as I plowed through the back door. I stopped abruptly, terror filled my body, and I stood momentarily side by side with my mom. Together we stared across the field and the outer lying road toward the source of the orange-red glow and blast.
Leo’s home was engulfed with sky-high flames. My mom and I watched with shocked, tear-streaked faces as the fire hissed and groaned, setting off frenzies of angry sparks while the deep, orange sky filled and darkened with dense, black smoke.
I saw two bluish-black silhouettes move quickly toward the ever growing and deadly flames. I heard their shouts and screams echo back toward me from across the empty cornfield.
“Mom!” Leo screamed out a heart-wrenching cry.
I barely made out the word that echoed back to where I stood, bathed in horror. The sound of his cry was excruciating as it traveled across the land that separated my mom and me from the distant black figures. Then it hit me.
“Oh my God, Mom? Is Leo’s mom home?”
She looked at me for a second too long, both our faces drained of any and all color as reality sank in to our consciousness, forcing us to understand.
“Mom!” the terrible scream penetrated my buzzing ears again. Chills ran up my spine causing the fine hairs along my neck and arms to stand on end.
“No!” I cried.
I took off across the field toward the engulfed house. I followed what I knew to be Leo’s silhouette, tripping and stumbling all the way on the mounds of frozen dirt and sawed-off cornstalk roots. My legs could not move fast enough. I attempted to speed myself forward by sheer will as my mind noted the crunches of my mom’s footfalls behind, matching me almost pace for pace.
I felt a small ounce of relief now that I seemed to be covering more distance faster. I no longer stumbled in the pitted field or slipped on patches of ice.
“Becca, don’t!” I heard my mom’s anxious voice call from a distance.
I closed in on the silhouetted figures now and realized, from their familiar movements, that the second form speeding toward the sky-high flames was my dad.
“You can’t! Someone will see!” I heard my mom’s voice call out again, this time even more distant.
Every single thought inside me was completely consumed with reaching Leo: I could help him, I could keep him out of harm’s way, I could shield him and his mother from the burning heat of the licking flames.
I was so close now. Leo and my dad had already reached the edge of the fiery circle that engulfed Leo’s home. The flames bounced and jumped outward, almost as if they were alive, trying to keep intruders from crossing their barriers.
“Becca, please!” I barely heard my mom’s plea this time. The roaring blaze filled every inch of the surrounding twilight’s quiet.
I put my feet down firmly on the ground when I suddenly realized with a gasp why my mom had been so desperately calling my name. I had been flying. In my precipitated advance toward the all-consuming
blaze, I literally and unknowingly flew across the landscape to reach Leo as quickly as possible.
I stalled for a hesitant moment, my feet frozen to the ground, astonished and terrified about what I’d just done. My emotions clearly had taken over my powers as I was driven to the edge. I wiped the thoughts from my mind for now and raced, feet contacting ground with each step, toward Leo and my dad. I desperately searched for a way through the fiery inferno to get access to the house.
“Mom!” Leo screamed again.
“Leo, over here!” my dad called to him.
My dad had found an old horse blanket draped over a sheet of rotted fencing lying against the barn. He tried to make his way through the angry blaze. He and Leo used the blanket as both a weapon to cut through the whipping flames as well as a protective shield to guard their bodies against the intense threatening waves of fire and smoke.
I couldn’t deny my protective instincts, not now that I was aware of my capabilities. The only two men in my life, whom I loved so dearly, desperately risked their lives to save yet another loved one. I focused everything in my power on my dad and Leo as they made their way into the blaze through dangers that I could not see, and then they disappeared behind the wall of fire as they headed toward the home’s scorched front porch.
I heard Leo’s voice again, reassuring his safety, “Mom!”
My dad’s voice yelled, “Claire!”
Both calls were filled with underlying tones of desperation as they awaited some sign or response --- anything.
Another massive explosion sent waves of heat into our bodies, reverberating everything inside my head.
The house blown again, a secondary blast causing even more damage to the already damaged structure. This explosion was not as piercing as the first, but still with enough force that my mom and I were both blown back a staggering step. She took cover by protecting her head with her singed, ashen arms. The vulnerable skin across her face burned from the intense and deadly heat.
My magical shield must have protected me from the blast because even though I had been knocked backward by the force of the explosion, I suffered no other effects of the inferno.
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